


Fool and hardcase

by Artemis_Crimson



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Game: Destiny 2: Warmind DLC, New Crushes, Other, it’s more shippy if you squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 17:46:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,771
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27320689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Artemis_Crimson/pseuds/Artemis_Crimson
Summary: In which Shin is blindsided and begins to plan his stepping back
Relationships: Shin Malphur & Guardian, Shin Malphur/Guardian
Comments: 3
Kudos: 8





	Fool and hardcase

One of the hunters that had followed in his path, a famous hero who was meant to be dead at that had gotten herself wrapped up in the hive and a goddamn warmind. So Shin, like the fool he knows he is had gone up to investigate Mars. The whole place is overrun with a frozen cult of heretic hive, Shin doesn’t usually tangle with humanity’s more straightforward foes. He finds he’s long since himself mired in this mess, that he can’t just skip out when he realizes there’s nothing shiftier than your average hunter about Ana Bray. 

He’s hip deep in Hive and has begrudgingly asked Jaren’s ghost to transmat in his favoured set of armour. He was changing out his disguise for the admittedly flashier, but more effective set he wore when hunting rogues. One piece at a time as he dodged behind outcroppings of rock and ice, certain he was alone against the masses. Then an overpowered sticky purple slug of liquid void ate up the ogre’s head and three more in rapid succession splintered the remaining knights.   
A large figure charged down through a group of frozen thrall, and he heard the telltale crackle of a Ghost sighing on the comms.

“Someone else is here and you’re alright! Thank the Traveler someone heard our beacon, I was so worried I’d got the frequency wrong again- you’re absolutely right there’s no time for that. Ana will want us back soon.”

Shin had frozen, staring at the cheerfully bobbing Ghost while his guardian in the background seemed to be kicking the last acolyte to death, pausing now and then to gesture at the Ghost. He wasn’t even aware there was a third party on this planet until now. The beacon had definitely failed but he couldn’t be responsible for telling this Ghost.  
That Guardian wipes the Hive paste off their boot with a disdainful click, wandering up while their Ghost babbles on. He can’t tell what they are, not species or class. They’re armoured head to toe, masked completely. Skirts of their robes cut like a mark, fine plate up their thighs and to their chest though that’s mostly obscured under a baggy caplet. The biceps of their gauntlets are textured with ribbons of fabric and metal rings woven in them, indistinguishable from a bond. He can’t distinguish the frequency of their light, the spectrum of colour and harm it runs. The only certainty is their Ghost talks up a storm and they’re broad enough even Shaxx might think twice before fighting them.

“-so would you come help? We’d both really appreciate it!”

Shin nods slowly not processing wholly what they’re here to do, he listen, mostly. The Hive and their esoteric rituals, he understands though the Ghost’s voice just goes through him. He knows about this, he’s had these kinds of sharp whispers crawl in his ears and through his skull emerging in blood.   
Neither of the three move until the guardian sighs inaudibly, wrapping a hand around his arm and tugging him to follow. He hops two steps along fiddling with new ammo for last word before they’re satisfied he knows where they’re going.

The Ghost clips his helmet affectionately and that’s weird enough he almost freezes again. 

“Don’t worry, my Guardian has come out on top of riskier things than some exiled prince! You’re perfectly safe.”

Shin shrugs to himself as the Ghost tucks away in his guardian’s collar to chat at them, he’s not recognized at least. The walk to the futurescape would be faster on a sparrow but they’re apparently not in a hurry, and riding one would stop them from shooting every cabal, thrall and psion from here to the Hellas Montes. The steady pace they make sees them arrive just in time for Ana Bray’s heroic entrance. She sweeps in devil may care, every inch a legend until their trio becomes quartet with Zavala’s surprise arrival. That pair bickers, he surreptitiously changes a few shaders to something else and hides his piece in a waist holster tucked beneath his cloak. If no one has cottoned on, he won’t make it easier.

They plot and plan, they’re gonna feed a shard of the Traveler to whatever nasty thing is stirring the surface to quake. It’s bold and toeing heresy in every way he approves of. Still, he could dip out with no shame in it, and this isn’t really his kind of territory besides. Hive gods or no, they seem to have this in hand. Seem to have done this before impossibly. Maybe it’s curiosity about that which drives him to synch their jumpships together, maybe he’s just wanting to see where this will go. He’s been given an open invitation, not sure what drove that to happen either. Trail of ashes in his wake attest he’s always eager to find out more though, this being a sweet little curiosity.   
They enter and exit orbit with show-off aileron rolls in flourishes definitely taught by that tower jockey. Shin’s endured by it, despite himself, and Jaren’s Ghost’s judging eye. 

EDZ remains just as bleakly lush as ever, least until they take a right turn down the wrong end of the world up into a nightmare. The water glitters with poison, blights and sorrow soldiers leaking into the world. Trees and path twisting like they’ve been Taken too. He draws his piece with a curse and it takes all his practiced grace to dodge sticky black un-fire blasts. They’ve been here before. Shin is certain of it. Their steps are too sure, their confidence too casual for anything else. He’s stuck between uneasy (a fallen form swinging dark blades) acceptance (a hand cannon blast to its sternum) and grateful (rifle round chatter distracting it for his knife). They find a rhythm together, strange as it is not dancing with a partner but by their side. Feeling like they could do this forever interrupted by Ana Bray when she calls a warsat down, cracking open their prize for transport. Victory is sweet as the vanilla-ozone slipping through his open helmet filters.

Mars starts chilly and gets ascendant frozen the further down the penumbral depths they wind. Shin makes tracks through bedrock, soft red sand, the thickest plates of chitin and bone. Silent and surefooted. That Guardian swaggers like they’ve got a full raid kit fireteam backing them up. Not sure if they’re cocky or confident  
He doesn’t think it’s his presence lending it. He thinks they’d stride easy here through to the hellmouth.  
Shin is competent. Jaren’s ghost whispers. cocky. He’s sticking with what he said. This isn’t a long partnership but mutual rhythm spurs him onward to match their air of ease just the same. Through wretched hive they wade, sharp as echoes through twisted tunnels. He lights up a Wizard solar flare brilliant and the embers that fall set clouds of steam from the ice hot enough to cook unlucky Thrall. The holster their gun a moment to stretch before taking their hands to a shrieker, tearing it apart with no bullet spent. An Orge blocking their path is nothing but a walking corpse. 

Down and down they spiral until finally a ritual parlour welcomes them. A portal glitters with soulfire and through it slides one of the biggest Wizard’s Shin has ever seen. The Guardian reloads, lines up a perfect shot and hits him right in the third eye. Chaos erupts, a frost white shield cloaks their target and hive spill from Beyond. They’re a silent sort, halfway stoic. Not hard to read. A snarl like a grin is written in every line of the Guardian. Wolf triumphant vicious violence stalks their shadow, wellspring carnage flowing from loops about the chamber, consuming all ‘til he looses himself in the clockwork two step of murder he knows oh so very well.

A blast hits Shin with a pull like a dying star, dragging his cloak into false fire like a void grenade, a shade too close. He’s used to being outnumbered, not outmatched in sheer strength. Two shots had burned through both knights, two crystal’s cracked with the artefacts that bound them to this plain. The heretic demigod, and how he wants to laugh that somehow he’s managed to find the hive equivalent of a shadow- arches up when that strange shield shatters again. He’s looking vicious as ever but haggered, bloody. Not excited as his partner who charges them wordless but attaching a triumphant yell to their motion isn’t exactly a difficult stretch of his imagination. Shin closes his eyes, sucks in a cold breath which even through his fine-filtered mask tastes like iron and mould. Wormspore gums up armour joints, the Traveler is distant and the sun is still farther away. It doesn’t matter, he carries the torch he kindles then light and they’ll have the last word today. He pulls every spark he can and bonds it with grip barrel trigger hammer bullet-  
One last shot is all he offers, a staggering blow. It’s all they need leaping in for execution blow blade through next and chitin so smooth he hears only the swing of metal not the typical impact crunch.  
They swirl their sword with a showy flourish to sheath it, Nokris’ form dusting, charred to cinders from their final blows. The Guardian turns sharply, sliding down a short ice hill on one heel. They hop over to the plate, letting their Ghost transmat something in. He stares up when they face him, he’s still bleeding faintly from already sealing wounds and dizzy from the blast. They offer Shin a chin tilted high like a smile and a thumbs up.  
Then the world goes dark, no vibrant. Wrong. A foreign voice in a familiar cadence that bellows and whispers and rocks the foundations strikes eardrum to marrow rogue transmissions clawing up and out of his fracturing skull.  
He falls to his knees, head smacking against the ground, the angle such he can see them clutch their head and writhe before collapsing just the same. Vision of crumbling glacier gone, sound long taken, the last thing he feels is blood pooling in his helmet running across his cheeks from his ears. A frantic crackle returning him to orbit as he passes out.

When he wakes up in his jumpship it’s just in time to tune into the end of it all. To catch the godfall transmissions and the machine whispers through unsevered comms. His hands still over controls that would let him transmat back down in consideration. He’s not sure of anything yet, but they seem worth keeping an eye on.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Halloween! Trying to post this before vaulting


End file.
